Education tech program to cost $189m

The state government will pour in $189 million into installing a cloud-based technology program for schools that aims to cut red tape for teachers.

Education Minister Tony Buti today announced software platform Kaartdijin will be rolled out at select schools in term two.

The state government aims to install the program in all 832 Western Australian public schools by mid-2026, awarding Compass Education and TechnologyOne $189 million in contracts to develop the technology.

The Kaartdijin program will replace several outdated systems used to monitor student data, set budgets and manage assets, and other paper-based tasks, the state goverment said.

It will also enable teachers to check on students' attendance, behaviour and wellbeing, and communicate to parents or carers in any language with the inbuilt Google translator.

Mr Buti said introducing the technology would reduce non-teaching workloads for schools to spend more time on students' education and wellbeing.

“Our investment helps teachers and school leaders to focus on teaching and lesson planning, while providing schools with a secure environment to check on the wellbeing of students," he said.

“WA is leading the way on this, and other states will be looking to learn from our experiences at a system-level with this technology."